Dark Energy Debunked Still More

Re: Dark Energy Debunked

O.K. Suppose the expansion of the universe is accelerating against all previous hypotheses that it should be decelerating. How could it be?

Well, Dark Energy is one explanation. Dark Energy is supposed to act, physically and mathematically, like negative pressure. It is as if the universe was immersed in a big vacuum, except that it is already a vacuum. But, it may be what is called a "false vacuum" with many more quantum entities seething just below the level of detectability (without huge accelerators probing muon decay, that is).

The true vacuum would act on our false vacuum universe the same way that a vacuum would act on a balloon, and, as the membrane got thinner, it would weaken. This is because the tension or overall force had surpassed the elastic limit and the expansion rate of the balloon would therefore accelerate. The tension seems to have surpassed the elastic limit of our universe about 9 billion years ago, it is said.

But this is just analogy. It is meaningless if it does not lead to a testable result or deduction. We cannot apply a force to the universe as a whole nor to spacetime. We cannot stretch spacetime in an experimental apparatus.

Perhaps spacetime stretches naturally as a result of the expansion that has already gone before. Then, as the receding galaxies recede faster from one another depending on their distance, it constitutes increased stretching of spacetime. As a matter of fact, the relativistic redshift is said to result from a "stretching" of spacetime.

But, I am only restating my analogy in different words (dodging or begging the question). This is not experimental or observational proof.

We need to put spactime in a sort of tensiometer to stretch it until it deforms more rapidly or else breaks. We need to find a way to rip spacetime. And hope that we do not tear a hole in the universe that will swallow us up!

This is all unproductive speculation. It would be more productive to follow the lead that this Dark Energy conclusion, reached by reductio ad absurdum, has given us. Carrying an argument to its extreme this way, to the point where an absurd contradiction occurs, is a standard method of proving logical falsehood.

Dark Energy proves itself false.

Let's work on this!

Then the calculations that indicate that the theoretic prevalence of heavier nuclei in the early universe are wrong, and the premises leading to this conclusion of too few heavy nuclei, need to be revised. Furthermore, the premises behind the interpretations of observations of too little "grey dust" that is made of such heavy nuclei (Be, B, C, N and O with traces of Mg, Al and Si) must also be wrong. There is a goldmine of research opportunity here!

Yes, scientists have made an 180 on the deceleration/acceleration trajectory of their thinking. And, yes, there could indeed be 1,000 million big bangs and other even weirder local parcels in a truly infinite universe. So, what is so special about it, even if our packet of the universe's expansion rate is accelerating. Who gives a rat's ass?

Well, we do, because we are here. And we do indeed live in a universe that just happens to have physical constants that support its existence and the existence of intelligent life. Presuming that we are indeed intelligent, that is. So, it matters to us because such conundrums fascinate. The irony is irresistible.

Another explanation of accelerating expansion is that spacetime is exploding. The negative pressure that shows up in relativistical equations is itself only relative. From the outside, looking in - even with an explosion - the pressure is negative. Just as energy is negative if it is released from the inside to the outside. The result is the same as before.

Except it is more like the original "phase change" that the "false vacuum" underwent at the time of the Big Bang. When water begins to boil, the expanding bubble drinks in more vapor at an accelerating rate because its surface area is increasing so rapidly that it ensnares more and more liquid, allowing it to turn into vapor. The false vacuum returns to its ground state, the true vacuum state, releasing energy that goes to accelerate the expansion rate. The bubble of spacetime that is our universe increases in size at an exponentially increasing rate, like a bubble of steam that grows larger so fast that it almost explodes out of the tea kettle.

These two scenarios are called the "quintessence" hypothesis and the "cosmological constant" hypothesis, respectively. Not only do we have to prove Dark Energy exists, but we have to distinguish between these two alternatives!

It would be much simpler to suppose that the premises underlying theoretical calculations and observational interpretations about the disparity between luminosity distances and redshift distances to far off type 1a supernovae are wrong.

Another alternative would be that the universe is growing. Spacetime may be reproducing itself and it is doing so at the usual exponentially increasing rate typical of a population of living organisms. The spacetime population underwent an initial accelerating increase initially (the BB), slowed down when waste products (like neutrinos) accumulated and sped up again when the volume increased sufficiently (and neutrino density decreased enough) for a new growth spurt to begin. Perhaps the conclusion should be, from this if it is true, that the universe is alive!

Gary Kent